Against the Current - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Scrapping

Second Aunt Lü let out a miserable screech, feeling as though her internal organs were about to be shattered. She abruptly released Mistress Xue, nearly vomiting out her gall bladder in the process. Xianglan still brandished the door-latch, ready to strike again, prompting the onlookers to cry out in alarm, "This is getting out of hand!" They rushed forward to wrest the door-latch away. Xianglan let them take it, whirled around, ducked into the kitchen, and emerged wielding a kitchen cleaver. Charging straight toward Second Aunt Lü, she shrieked at the top of her lungs, "Day in and day out you steal and pilfer, taking things from our home, and today you even beat and cursed my mother! Old accounts and new accounts will be settled together today. I'm not going to live anymore—I'll drag you down with me to our mutual doom!"

The kitchen cleaver gleamed dazzlingly in the sunlight, sending a bone-chilling shiver through anyone who looked at it. Second Aunt Lü was utterly startled and scrambled desperately out of the way. The neighbors hurried to block Xianglan, calling out from all directions, "Let's talk this out sensibly! Put the knife down right now!"

Xianglan shrieked at the top of her lungs, "Why didn't you stop that shrew when she was beating and cursing my mother just now?! Our family has suffered a monstrous humiliation today! First I'll hack her to death, and then I'll slit my own throat so everything is clean and finished!" Saying this, she lunged forward again, cursing, "Go ahead and summon your precious secondary mistress out here—bah! What kind of 'secondary mistress' is she? Nothing more than a bedchamber maid, a dog exploiting its master's power! Today, with this blade going in bloody and coming out red, I'll run you through first before slitting my own neck!"

Seeing that Xianglan was clearly dead-set on a desperate, do-or-die struggle, the crowd moved in to snatch the knife away. With a fierce and forbidding expression, Xianglan snapped, "Whoever takes my knife is my enemy! Even if I can't kill her today, I'll do it tomorrow!" This formidable and awe-inspiring display completely intimidated the bystanders. Glaring once more at Second Aunt Lü, Xianglan gnashed her teeth and cursed, "You shrew, come over here and meet your doom if you've got the guts! Since you beat and cursed my mother, I'll butcher your little brat to vent my hatred!"

The onlookers stared in wide-eyed shock: What?! Not only was she going to kill Second Aunt Lü, but she was actually going to slaughter the woman's child? Everyone knew that after having three daughters, the Lü family had finally managed to spawn a son the year before, whom they treasured like the pupils of their own eyes. This Chen girl usually looked pretty and gentle—who would have thought she was the fiercest shrew of them all!

Second Aunt Lü had originally intended to trade blows and curses with Xianglan, but upon hearing her threaten to "butcher your little brat to vent my hatred," and seeing that her opponent was clearly risking her life without a second thought, she was momentarily terrified. Huddled in the corner of the courtyard, she dared not utter a single word. Mistress Xue, seeing her daughter step up to defend her, felt an intense wave of vindication, but when she saw Xianglan wielding a weapon with blood-red eyes, genuinely ready for a killing spree, she panicked. Staggering forward, she threw her arms around Xianglan and cried out, "My child, put the knife down! If you really create a homicide and get tangled up in a lawsuit, how do you expect your mother to go on living?"

Thinking to herself that it was best to quit while she was ahead, Xianglan maintained her stony expression and handed the kitchen cleaver over to Mistress Xue, saying, "Hold this for me." With that, she shook off the people holding her and dashed straight into the Lü family's quarters. Second Aunt Lü's two daughters had been peeking timidly into the courtyard from the doorway; seeing Xianglan charge in, they scrambled in all directions out of fright. Xianglan swiftly rummaged through the room, yanked a piece of fine cloth clothing out from under the bedding, and dashed back out "swoosh, swoosh," holding the garment aloft. "This very piece of clothing was freshly made for me by my mother! The cuffs are embroidered with an orchid flower, and there's even the character 'Lan' written there—I traced the pattern myself with my own hand. Which of your daughters is named 'Lan'?"

Second Aunt Lü's face turned alternately pale and red as she tried to brazen it out, whining, "My second girl also has clothes of this exact color; I must have picked it up by mistake."

Xianglan sneered, "Picked it up by mistake? Who do you think you're fooling!"

The surrounding crowd chimed in to smooth things over, advising, "It's all a misunderstanding, a mere misunderstanding! Neighbors living side-by-side, what words can't be talked out?"

Xianglan let out a cold huff. "Apologize to my mother right now, and this matter is written off. Otherwise, I'll die before letting this rest, and I'll drag the whole affair straight into the estate! I'll make sure the mistresses, grandmothers, and eldest young master all know that the Lü family's 'secondary mistress' has a mother who steals like a common dog!"

Second Aunt Lü hated Xianglan to the core and longed to tear her apart flesh from bone, yet Xianglan had clamped down on her most fatal vulnerability. Asking her to apologize was an absolute impossibility. Rolling her eyes, she collapsed right onto the ground, wailing and beating the earth. "Oh, heavens! That door-latch was about to beat me to death! It's got my back aching and my chest hurting! My dear secondary mistress, if you don't come and dispense justice for me right now, I'm going to be stabbed to death by a knife! Why is my life so bitter, letting some impoverished little beast trample all over my head..." Floundering and rolling around in the dirt, she adamantly refused to get up.

Xianglan walked over, spat viciously right onto Second Aunt Lü's face, and cursed syllable by syllable, "Shameless—wretch!" With that, she pulled Mistress Xue indoors and slammed the door shut with a loud bang.

Chen Wanquan had been hiding inside the house for ages. When the commotion had erupted in the courtyard earlier, he had spun around in frantic anxiety indoors. Now, seeing Xianglan, he gritted his teeth and scolded, "You, oh you! You're nothing but trouble for the adults of this household!"

Ignoring him entirely, Xianglan calmly fetched a basin of water for Mistress Xue to wash her face and tidy her hair, then poured half a cup of cold tea to drink. After freshening up, Mistress Xue combed her hair and murmured, "Making a scene like this certainly feels satisfying, but their eldest daughter still holds a fair bit of influence..."

Chen Wanquan flew into a rage. "You're only thinking of that now? And what about your daughter's reputation? Word will get out now that 'the Chen family's daughter is a vicious shrew wielding blades at a tender age,' and how on earth is she ever going to find a husband!"

Annoyed, Xianglan waved a hand dismissively and shot Chen Wanquan a glare. "Enough, enough! If Father has this much backbone, why didn't you step up to defend my mother? You only know how to bully the people in your own home while acting cowardly and submissive to outsiders. If Father had any sense of responsibility whatsoever, I wouldn't have had to saddle myself with the reputation of a 'shrew'!"

Chen Wanquan only ever dared to direct his temper at his wife; toward his daughter, he remained indulgent to a fault and vaguely afraid of her. Hearing Xianglan retort thusly, he fell silent. Xianglan continued, "Second Aunt Lü is a hardened rogue who throws her weight around with unbridled shamelessness—how can you possibly reason with someone like that? The only way is to fight violence with violence; that's the only guarantee she'll behave. We are naturally a refined and cultured family; we'd never lower ourselves to squabbling with her like fighting cocks, because that only brings misery upon ourselves. In the past, we swallowed our losses and endured it. But now that she has bullied her way onto our very doorstep, if we still don't stand up for ourselves, people will only point fingers at our spines behind our backs, calling us spineless and bullying us all the harder. Today she takes a piece of clothing, but what about our gold and silver trinkets tomorrow? What about our savings the day after?" Looking straight at Chen Wanquan, she added, "With such a spineless parental home, what kind of good marriage do you expect me to make? Even if I'm married off, I'll just be bullied by my husband's family. Since Father and Mother never had a son, outsiders already look down on us by a couple of points. If I didn't use this incident today to establish my formidable reputation, who knows how we'd be trampled upon in the future? So what if I carry the reputation of a 'shrew'?"

Mistress Xue chuckled in spite of herself, tapping Xianglan on the forehead. "You were raised in the Buddha's gates since childhood—isn't Buddhism supposed to be about mercy and compassion? How on earth did you think of grabbing a kitchen cleaver? You scared me into a cold sweat."

Making a playful grimace, Xianglan smiled. "The Buddha also said, 'The wrathful Vajra, the lowering Bodhisattva.' Just now, I was merely playing the role of the Vajra to save Second Aunt Lü. Besides, I knew what I was doing and had full control; I was never going to actually cut her, just put on a show to frighten her."

Pulling Xianglan into her embrace, Mistress Xue said affectionately, "My daughter has grown up and knows how to stand up for her mother." Chen Wanquan cast a fierce glare at Mistress Xue, shaking his head with a sigh. Leaning against her mother's chest, Xianglan murmured, "Mother, rest assured. Although I am a girl, I am no inferior to men. There's a saying: 'Women are no less heroic than men.' As long as I draw breath for a single day, I will never let you suffer a single day of grievance."

Chen Wanquan sneered, "You're mighty impressive—it's just a pity you weren't born a red-robed grand general!"

Xianglan curled her lips and stayed silent. She certainly wouldn't have minded being reborn as a red-robed grand general; or failing that, even being born male would have sufficed. What a pity—in this lifetime, she was still a woman.

In her previous life, she had been named Shen Jialan, the legitimate granddaughter of Shen Wenhan, Grand Preceptor to the Crown Prince and Chancellor of the Secretariat. She, too, had once been praised as someone who "is no less heroic than men." The Shen family was a prestigious and noble lineage deeply favored by the Crown Prince, and their clan had flourished. From a young age, Shen Jialan had been surrounded by countless tutors, mastering the zither, chess, calligraphy, painting, and household management down to the smallest detail. Who could have anticipated that upon the First Emperor's demise, the Eighth Prince would instigate a treasonous coup, the Crown Prince's whereabouts would become unknown, and the imperial palace would change hands overnight? The Eighth Prince spared no effort in hunting down and slaughtering the Crown Prince's faction, and because of the succession struggle, the Shen family was implicated, resulting in the execution of nine generations of the clan. Thus, all the legitimate descendants of the Shen family were dragged to the Meridian Gate to be beheaded, while the female relatives were consigned to the Ministry of Rites' music bureau. Fifteen-year-old Shen Jialan was already a married wife, and her husband's family was also caught in the fallout, sentenced to exile three thousand li away.

Shen Jialan had been cast down from the clouds into the filthy mire, losing her family and home overnight, witnessing the coldest and most bitter aspects of human nature as she followed her husband's family into a thousand-li exile. Along the way, enduring freezing cold, starvation, ostracism, and bullying, the hardships were beyond description. Her newlywed husband, Xiao Hang, fell gravely ill on the journey. To protect her husband and family, she transformed from a refined and graceful young lady of a great household into a fierce, sharp-clawed shrew. Even so, she ultimately failed to keep her entire family safe—midway through, her husband passed away from illness, and she herself contracted a chill, hovering on the brink of death before being abandoned by the government escorts, soon perishing from her illness.

When she opened her eyes once more, she had become a tiny infant being cooed over by Mistress Xue, who softly murmured, "Xianglan." Although she was merely a bondservant of the Lin family, she had never felt such profound gratitude and contentment.

The Lin family, a prominent clan of Jiangnan, was a world she knew all too well. They had built their fortune through commerce and later married several daughters of declining or secondary official families, gradually growing prosperous and influential. With their descendants entering officialdom, within three generations their power had rooted itself firmly across the water towns of Jiangnan, boasting boundless wealth and prestige. Lin Zhaoxiang, the head of the Lin clan, was smooth-faced and adept at maneuvering in all directions. Back when she was thirteen, Lin Zhaoxiang had intended to arrange a marriage with the Shen family, betrothing her to Lin's eldest grandson, Lin Jinlou—even though she was four years older than Lin Jinlou. For reasons unknown, however, the matter was later dropped, and Lin Zhaoxiang even submitted a memorial to resign from office and return to his hometown. Two years later, amidst the bloody political purges of the court, the Shen family was nearly exterminated, while the Lin family stood unshaken, growing even more prosperous than before.

Having survived the confiscation of her family's estate, Shen Jialan knew all too well that when a master's household fell, the fate of the servants was even more tragic—she had heard that the senior maids who used to serve her had all ended up in brothels. Comforting herself silently, she reasoned that with the political situation at court now settled, the Lin family kept their eyes open in all directions and shouldn't follow the same disastrous path as the Shhens. Her identity as a bondservant should at least remain secure for the time being. In her childhood, raised within the Buddhist gates and spending her days alongside Abbess Dingyi, her life had been destitute yet peaceful and joyful. But the moment she stepped out of the Buddhist sanctuary and back into the mortal world, the harsh reality struck her abruptly: a weak-willed father with a fondness for the bottle, a frail mother in poor health, and she herself about to reach adulthood, with her family already bustling to arrange a marriage for her.

Mistress Xue was a beauty, and Chen Xianglan's present vessel was even more striking by several degrees. Coupled with her refined aura, literacy, skill in needlework, and the gentle, sweet smile that constantly graced her quiet face—not to mention the honest, upstanding reputation of her parents—inquiries from suitors had practically beaten down their threshold. Several families even sent high-ranking stewards from the Lin estate to make inquiries.

Her father had taken a fancy to the third son of Second Manager Huang from the rice shop, while her mother favored the youngest son of Chief Manager Liu from the silk store. Both young men were hereditary bondservants of the Lin family. Xianglan had seen them both: they couldn't recognize a character if it bit them, lacked vision and insight, and were merely servants of a great noble house, lacking only a bit of the raw rusticity of outsiders. Mistress Xue was already happily picking and choosing among them, preparing to finalize a match by the end of the year, spend some money during the Spring Festival to pull strings, and beg a high-ranking steward's wife to intercede with the masters on their behalf to grant Xianglan favor, allowing her to marry and fulfilling a lifelong wish of her own.

Xianglan wanted to look up to the heavens and wail—she would rather die than marry like that! To marry a Lin family bondservant meant that all her children and grandchildren for generations to come would forever remain Lin family bondservants. What was a servant? A servant was cargo; a servant was the master's property; a servant could not take the imperial examinations; a servant could not marry freely; a servant could not own land deeds or property; a servant was nothing more than a plaything for the master! If the master wished to sell them, kill them, flay them, or give them away as gifts, it was entirely within their rights!

Xianglan had no desire to spend her entire life as a plaything. Having managed to live a second life against all odds, she was determined in this existence to become a landed lady with her own houses, fields, and livestock. Guarding her family, she only wished for a peaceful, tranquil life. When she was still a young child, she had already been plotting how to have her entire family redeemed from bondservancy while safeguarding their future livelihood. Ever since she heard that the contract her father signed when he sold himself back then was not a life-contract and could still be bought out, her eyes had lit up—as long as her father was redeemed, her own emancipation would also find hope. Moreover, she had heard that the Lin family did indeed allow hereditary bondservants to redeem themselves! She had secretly painted several landscape scrolls and had her father take them to the antique shop to sell, lying that they were painted by a nun from the temple to raise silver for temple repairs. Once the paintings sold, the shop would take a ten percent commission. Within just a few days, all those paintings had sold, earning one tael and two hundred wen of silver. Overjoyed, Xianglan had safely hidden the silver away.

Today, Second Aunt Lü had happened to run right into her trap. Her goals were threefold: first, to vent her mother's anger; second, to intimidate the shameless scoundrels who usually bullied her family; and third, to establish a fierce reputation for herself so she could stall the marriage arrangements and slowly plot her next moves.